The number of far-right extremists in Germany is up by a third in 2019. “Everyday there are police reports about swastikas and Hitler salutes; it has become a part of everyday life,” said Max Aschenbach, who proposed the “Nazi emergency” motion in Dresden.
From the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo offices to the bloody end of a nationwide manhunt, events in France this week have laid bare the fault lines with, and within, the country’s Muslim population. That tension extends far beyond France’s borders, and into almost every other European country.
During the Cold War, all things Western were either forbidden or held in deep suspicion among officials east of the iron curtain. Yet, somehow, the culture of skateboarding that cropped up in California made it into East Berlin, where it thrived. A new documentary looks at that evolution.